MUSIC: Panda Bear -Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper Live

When Animal Collective began it’s slow rise as experimental trippy music nerds into the big act they are now much of it had to do with them tempering their weird instrumentation with solid songwriting chops. And much of that was due to Panda Bear, who’s sense of melody is so beach boys on point that even when his bandmates drowned it with as many weird layered tracks as they could it always shined through.
He’s about to drop his newest solo album, Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper, and it’s as solid as any of the other work he’s done within the band or his own solo stuff. Here you’ve got the weird synths/samples that are his trademark, but he’s also brought the hip-hop loops he sneaks in more to the forefront. And of course his stunningly beautiful layered pop vocals.
Panda Bears been promoting this thing full time, and yesterday popped through MOMA’s PS1 museum to play the track live for Boiler Room. We’ve got the show below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QVrfgpwoXw